Christmas 2012

It seems like every Christmas is a whirlwind of activity! We only got to come up to Austin for the 4 day weekend, but managed to see everyone. We had three families to see Christmas Day, and we did it all! Although I was exhausted by the time we got home Christmas night. My abuelita was staying with my family, so I got to see her. She only speaks Spanish, but Ryan is fluent and it's fun to try to keep up with what they're saying.

3 1/2 generations?(soon to be 4 at least) Baby girl's middle name will be
in honor of her bisabuelita(great-grandma).

Cassie was beyond excited to receive a telescope Christmas Day, compliments of our grandparents cleaning out the attic in preparation for a move.

I'm so glad I was able to capture the look on her face!

As a side story, note the pink footie PJ's she's wearing(they also have monkeys).  Christmas Eve we always get new PJ's. My mom accidently mixed up Ryan's and Cassie's and he ended up opening Cassie's! The funniest thing is that Ryan thought they were for him! While we all sat there laughing at the mix up(Cassie had PJ pants as long as her) Ryan continued to be confused and thought they were a gag gift.  Obviously, the switch was remedied as I don't have a picture of Ryan trying to fit into these.

After spending the morning with my family, we went over to see my dad and stepmom and siblings, who all are in town for my stepsister's wedding(which is this Saturday so exciting! Pictures to follow!).  We talked to Travis via Skype and had a terrible connection, but it was still nice to see him. My stepmom made this beautiful Christmas quilt for me which has kept me warm all week!

For Ryan's 29th birthday, we went to dinner at Macaroni Grill and had a nice time.  I was informed that this was the first birthday he had ever had to work on. He was bummed to go to work and be an adult, but I think he still had a nice day. I can't believe he'll be 30 next year!

I love all my family and am looking forward to a sister roadtrip to Ft. Worth tomorrow for the wedding!  Happy New Year's everyone! I can't believe 2012 is drawing to a close.  Ryan and I have so much to be grateful for, including but not limited to, Ryan graduating, getting pregnant, Ryan getting a job, making new wonderful friends in San Antonio, new callings at church, me having such a healthy pregnancy thus far, and most of all, for the baby girl we'll get to meet in two months! Counting our blessings and looking forward to a wonderful and exciting 2013!

Christmas Decorations, Hiking, and Sisters

Ryan was very nice this year and helped me put up the Christmas tree without even one exasperated sigh!  Anyway, I appreciate his help and think our little tree looks nice this year, especially with our new cowboy star tree topper!

This is our "Christmas Countertop,"  I made the Santa's elf sign recently at Super Saturday.

 Ryan and I went hiking last weekend out at Enchanted Rock State Park. We climbed to the top of the dome since it had been a really long time since either of us had actually done it.  It's about a 425 foot elevation climb in 0.6 miles, so it's pretty steep. A little too steep for my pregnant self! But my grandma hiked up it not too long ago, so I kept that in mind and kept trucking along. Blanca pretty much sprinted to the top and then was worn out!  Anyway, we hiked for about three hours and I think did about 5 miles.  It was a really nice day!

 This week, my little sister Delaney came to visit us for a couple days.  It was so nice having her here! I don't get to see her a lot because she lives in Florida and she's growing up so fast(she's almost 12 now).  She was so helpful while she was here. It was nice to have a kitchen/cooking/cleaning buddy, and to have another girl in the house to out vote Ryan on watching girly movies and consult on shoes.

At the Riverwalk!  We had so much fun with her!

Friday night Ryan and I went out to his work Christmas party/dinner.  I got the excuse to dress up, which was nice. I also started my 3rd trimester! Crazy, right?

I still don't feel very big yet, even at 28 weeks.  But it's kind of nice,
because I've never been small in my life! I was always the tall girl, with big
feet and big hands growing up. And Ryan is only about an inch taller than me.
Of course I still have another 13 weeks to get much, much bigger!

This is my other little sister Cassie(almost 11) and us at the Diwali Festival of Lights last month. I love this picture!  And I love my awesome little sisters!

Isn't she cute?

Notice that in all of these pictures, I'm wearing short sleeves.  I am so ready for the cold front coming in tonight.  This pregnant lady needs it to be winter already!

First of the Baby Stuff

I successfully completed my first two baby projects! And can I just say, I'm a little proud about it!  The first is a little owl picture that I'm going to frame.

From Pinterest/Martha Stewart. Not bad though, right?

Then I did her nursery letters to go above her crib.

Started out with these pretty wooden letters from Hobby Lobby.

Picked out the scrapbook paper.

Ta da! Very careful tracing and cutting around all the spirals, then a little ModPodge,
and  I have some pretty awesome letters!

Even the perfectionist architect husband was impressed (or at least he lied a little bit more convincingly). He's supposed to help me hang them up tomorrow.  I'll post some finished pictures of her "wall"(she's sharing the room with us) once we get everything set up in a couple months.  But I had to show off her letters and owl in the meantime!

Here they are hung up!

I'm going to find something to go at the end of her name. 

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!  This year is our fifth Halloween together, wow! Ryan and I dressed up as Woodstock and Snoopy.  I was hoping my baby bump would be a little bigger so I could be the Kool-Aid Man, but I'm not quite big enough yet.  So I decided on Snoopy.  I told Ryan he should be Charlie Brown, but he got really fixated on Woodstock.

His "yellow" hair dye ended up being green. And he would not, under any
circumstances, allow me to glue yellow feathers to his shirt!

My baby bump is a little bigger than this in real life! Promise!

I also made these delicious chocolate cupcakes from Pinterest. They were supposed to be goblins, but we decided they looked more like owls. I used my favorite cake/frosting recipe, Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Cake. Super yummy and ridiculously easy.  It was my first time making cupcakes, but they turned out really good!

This was the mummy pumpkin I made, also off Pinterest.  I think it kind of looks more like some kind of wound care patient, covered in 4x4s and medipore tape, but maybe that's just the nurse in me.

This was our much cooler jack-o-lantern this year. It took Ryan about an hour and a half just to carve the design! But we have to represent our Razorbacks!

Woo Pig Sooie!

These were our costumes the past couple Halloweens.

2008- Mexican Banditos. First Halloween together.

2009- My favorite, The Joker and Batman

2010-Tinker Bell, Captain Hook, and starring Blanca as Peter Pan

2011-I worked last Halloween, so we just threw something together. Pirate and scary mask.  Kind of lame, but we had to have a costume picture!

Hope everyone has a fun, safe Halloween!  Don't eat too much candy!  We will be sporting our costumes again tonight to go get some $2 Chipotle for dinner!  Yum!

Pinterest Week

I had a pinterest kind of week.  Well at least the first half.  I think I went a little recipe happy, and was exhausted and frustrated by Wednseday!  It doesn't help I can't remember things right now.  While cooking lately, I often ask myself, "Did I just add two cups of flour or three?"  This can quickly lead to disaster.  Or forgetting ingredients is another one of the things  I did this week, which resulted in multiple trips to HEB. I did do pretty good this week though about buying all my groceries Saturday and actually going through them all in all of my carefully planned recipes!

Since I have been starving lately, I tried to find some recipes that would keep well for lunches the next day.  So Sunday, I tried this recipe from Pinterest for lunch, Warm Zucchini, Corn, & Black Bean Salad.  Pretty yummy!  And very simple besides cutting up some veggies.  I added some tortillas chips, sour cream, and cheese.  Ryan and I both had it for lunch the next day with some rice.  That was lunch.  A couple hours later, I made something new from one of my favorite cookbooks, CookingLight, Spiced Tilapia with Roasted Pepper-Tomatillo Sauce.  It was good.  Ryan liked it better than I did.  It's not spicy at all, for anyone scared of trying spicy things.

Monday, I made some coasters for our coffee table.  I had made a bunch of these for Christmas presents last year.  Also another Pinterest idea.   The original link I had pinned has been removed now, but they're so easy to make!  I found another one with pretty similar instructions if anyone is interested here.

Since I was already at it, I made some coasters for Christmas & Halloween.

Everyday coasters.

Halloween coasters.

Monday I made this delicious Vietnamese Chicken Salad, again from CookingLight.  There was a ton of chopping of vegetables, but it was worth it in the end. It was really, really good!

Tuesday, I tried to make way too many things!  I started off with some pretty easy peanut butter dog treats I found on Pinterest.  Easy, but messy from rolling out dough, etc.  But Blanca seems to like them!  

Yes, I used Christmas cookie cutters.

Then for lunch I made another Pinterest lunch idea.  Bean and Rice Salad.  Also good and very filling.  I added a little feta cheese and it really boosted the flavor!  By this time it was late afternoon, so I started on some homemade pesto sauce for dinner with a recipe I've already tried in the past.  I was in the kitchen all day it seemed like! 

Wednesday I made another Pinterest recipe, PB chocolate chip oatmeal bars, which I think was my favorite thing I've made all week!  For dinner, I made a recipe that I've made a dozen times, but tried to make homemade pita bread.  Fortunately I had the foresight to ask Ryan to pick up some premade stuff from the store on his way home.  This was a good thing, because I failed to realize that the pita dough had to rise for 90 minutes, and I started after 5pm.  Then I had a pregnant moment and thought my bag of quinoa was couscous...they cook very differently just to let everyone know.  I ended up making it work, but I think this was kind of my breaking point of the week.  Too much cooking new recipes!

After we ate dinner, I finished the pita bread.  And it turned out pretty good.  Some of them even puffed like they were supposed to!    

pita bread

So four new meals and three baked goods, including six Pinterest things in four days.  I think I might spread my new recipes through the week from now on.

Baby Girl!

We're having a baby girl! Measuring in at 18 weeks and weighing 8oz.  Pretty neat to see her wiggling about during the ultrasound today.  I foresee hair bows, dresses, and baby boutiques in the near future.  And we're happy to be adding another little girl to the family. We feel so happy and blessed.

Our new apartment

Here are some pictures of our new place.  We put up some new artwork and got new bedroom furniture!  Still working on my bedroom, so not posting any pictures of it yet.

View from the front door of our living room. Finally hung up the mask
that Ryan got in Rwanda last year. And got a new lamp for the end table since our
other two broke. I love Kirkland's!

Other view of living room. Finally framed some Mexican art from
Ryan's trip back in 2010. That's above the TV.

Here's a close up of the new art above the TV.

A lot of these are cave paintings from across Mexico and South America.
The black on the middle left kind of scares me! But they're pretty cool. And
I was really happy I found a 16x20 floating frame for $20 at Garden Ridge! Even cheaper
than making my own!

What will eventually be the dining room (comes off the side of the living room) once I get a table.
 Right now it's kind of Blanca's room.

Not a common sight! Yes, Ryan is cooking in the kitchen!  He was making salsa.

Again, Ryan was cooking, so it was a little messy.

The bathroom.  You can't see it but there's a purple shower rug.
Love my new shower curtain!

The new bed we got from IKEA. This is just the picture from their website since my room is a mess.

And this is our new dresser. Again from the IKEA website.  We actually got 2 of the
three drawer dressers and just stuck them next to each other.

And that's our apartment.  Smallest place we've ever lived at, but I'm liking it ALOT better now that things are organized and hung up on walls, etc.  Now just need to tackle organizing/decorating the bedroom!  We also have a little balcony that we will eventually get some chairs and a little table for.

Tomorrow is our first 2nd trimester ultrasound, so stay tuned for news if this baby is a boy or a girl!


*Update: We finally got a table this month! (October)

Awesome Craigslist steal at $65! The girl I bought it from had also bought it
from Craigslist, so it's kind of a "hand-me-down-hand-me-down"! But it works!